Consumers of wireless communication devices, such cellular telephones, demand small, portable, and compact devices. One design feature that provides both functional advantages and such miniaturization and portability benefits is the external audio headset.
A known headset design includes a 4-pole, monaural accessory, with Push-To-Talk (PTT) function. The interface between the monaural headset and the wireless communication device includes one line each for a speaker/earpiece transducer, a microphone, a PTT button, and a common ground reference.
Although modern wireless communication devices are now capable of providing stereo audio output via internal audio speakers in the wireless communication device, unfortunately, there are no known stereo headsets that also include a PTT function on the audio headset for controlling a wireless communication device.
Additionally, in view of the consumer demands for smaller and more compact wireless communication devices, any attempt to increase the number of connector pins at an interface of the wireless communication device, such as to allow both a conventional stereo audio headset and also to add a separate PTT switch control, would not only increase the size and complexity of the interface connectors, at both the wireless device and at the headset, but it would also increase the overall cost of a product to consumers. This type of solution would increase the overall number of connector lines on an interface for both the wireless communication device and the headset. Consumer demands for miniaturization of wireless communication device solutions, and the strong consumer sensitivity to increased product costs, would detrimentally impact the commercial viability of such a wireless communication device solution.
Therefore a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.